First, let’s deal with I Want My Wife Back, as someone has to. It’s not going to go away if we simply pretend it isn’t there.

This is an old-fashioned sitcom in that it is set in white, middle-class suburbia, in the style of Terry And June or, more recently, My Family, which was very bad, but still averaged seven million viewers per episode, from which we can conclude either: (1) the British viewing public has a fondness for very bad sitcoms in the same way it has a fondness for Arctic Roll, which is a very bad pudding, or (2) one person liked it and 6,999,999 tuned in to double-check Robert Lindsay and Zoë Wanamaker were the stars, as they couldn’t quite believe it.

(I know, I know. The money was probably glorious. But even so.)

This is an old-fashioned sitcom in that it is set in white, middle-class suburbia, in the style of Terry And June or, more recently, My Family , which was bad, but still averaged seven million viewers per episode

White, middle-class suburbia needn’t be the kiss of death, sitcom wise. Outnumbered, for example, was excellent.

But if you are a (1) then you will find yourself extremely well served by I Want My Wife Back. This stars Ben Miller as Murray, who works in a bank as ‘a relationship manager’ which means, in my experience, he’s the person who sucks up to you when you have money in your account and then drops you stone dead when you don’t.

The ‘sit’ is that Murray is so busy sucking up and dropping stone dead he has no time for his wife, Bex (Caroline Catz).

He’s a workaholic, as he keeps saying, and everyone keeps saying, and we’re expected to buy into this ‘sit’ even though Murray is never seen doing any actual work.

I suppose if you are going to be a workaholic, the one who doesn’t do any work is the best kind of workaholic to be.

I mean, if you could be a drunk without having to drink wouldn’t that be ideal?

The characters are either stereotypes (the philandering boss, the overbearing in-laws) or spectacularly unlikely (Bex’s feminist friend, that young woman in Murray’s office who has the hots for him, inexplicably)

No falling over or blackouts or hangovers or any of that faff? The characters are either stereotypes (the philandering boss, the overbearing in-laws) or spectacularly unlikely (Bex’s feminist friend, that young woman in Murray’s office who has the hots for him, inexplicably) while no one behaves in any way anyone would behave.

Would the philandering boss ask Murray to cover for him and then raise the night in question in front of his own wife?

I can’t now recall a single funny line, and as for Bex’s surprise birthday party, which Murray farcically tries to cancel once he’s heard she’s walked out, I might not have been able to stop laughing, had I started, but as I hadn’t, it wasn’t an issue.

Also, let’s be clear, this is not a show in which the women have agency.

Yes, Bex walked out, but this isn’t about her leaving. It’s about Murray being left. By the way, I’m a (2) and Ben Miller, he was quite funny once as one half of Armstrong and Miller. Wasn’t he? Secondly, let’s deal with Caravanner Of The Year, as someone has to.

Caravanner Of The Year is one of those programmes that has drunk at the same waterhole as The Great British Bake Off, a waterhole already much depleted by sewing and allotments and what have you.

The tasks included wives reversing round hay bales while the husbands shouted: ‘HARD LEFT! HARD LEFT!’ and unless I dropped off and missed something, which is likely, I believe that’s as exciting as it got

So now, basically, we’re licking away at dry dirt, rather than seeking new waterholes in the form of original ideas.

This features six couples all competing for the title, under the watchful eye of the chairman of the Caravan Club, a body founded to impart misery on all other Aroad users, particularly on bank holidays.

The selection of the competitors was not explained, and the caravan did not have to be a caravan as there were also campervans, which are not caravans, and also motorhomes, which are not caravans.

The tasks included wives reversing round hay bales while the husbands shouted: ‘HARD LEFT! HARD LEFT!’ and unless I dropped off and missed something, which is likely, I believe that’s as exciting as it got.

The selection of the competitors was not explained, and the caravan did not have to be a caravan as there were also campervans, which are not caravans, and also motorhomes, which are not caravans

This had ‘dry dirt’ written all over it, but even so I’m guessing this won’t stop anybody visiting that waterhole yet again, particularly as we’ve yet to turn trainspotters into television, or bird watchers, or those people who drive to beauty spots, eat their sandwiches in the car, and promptly drive home. Go figure.

The antidote to both the above might be Julia Davis’s latest comedy, Camping. If you are familiar with Davis’s output (Nighty Night, Hunderby) you will know she’s both horrible and delicious, and therefore horribly delicious. Set during a group camping holiday, most of the characters are grotesques but, unlike those in I Want My Wife Back, there’s a kernel of truth to them.

We all know a control-freak mum like Fi (a superb Vicki Pepperdine) and a tragic man like Tom (Rufus Jones) who has left his wife for a hot young thing (Davis) and believes he’s all groovy again.

All six episodes have been downloaded and I’m up to number four, but it’s not for the faint-hearted as sex and disease feature largely, along with Fi’s fear her son might not grow up straight.

She is incensed when she discovers her husband has left a fossil on the beach for Archie to find. ‘This is the sort of thing that is going to turn our son gay,’ she rails.

‘You deceive them and they end up a homosexual.’ Horribly delicious, like I said.

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No sit, no com: I want 30 minutes of my life back after watching I Want My Wife Back